they come to school with some really heart-breaking deficits in their academic skills. on average a fifth grader comes to our school at least two or three grade levels behind. >> reporter: these kinds of educational deficits have caused lingering problems for a city where one-third of all students fail to graduate on time. >> we have to make sure that we are... >> reporter: that has led to a concentrated effort by bridgeport academy middle school. like all our achievement first schools to place and keep great teachers in the classroom. in order to identify who those great teachers are, acevement first ceo says the organization has developed a comprehensive checklist to evaluate its teachers. >> in the past teacher evaluation has focused on observations which at their worst become staged dog and pony show experiences that don't actually tell you a lot about teachers' effectiveness or more importantly how they need to improve. >> i want us now to walk quickly through the school work for the whole observation. >> reporter: at this school teacher observations are detailed b